The Chainsaw Caddie

Over the holiday, I met with my great-uncle who is a farmer in Southeast Kansas. Marvin and his wife had just returned from the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, IL. They were happy to announce that their Chainsaw Caddie had been awarded first-place in the show’s annual Inventor’s Challenge.

An excellent invention and good that the USPTO issued the patent. The Examiner Kenneth Peterson should be congratulated.

Claim 1 is novel in light of the DR trimmer because it includes a removably attached chain saw and has a nifty support plate allowing the chain saw blade to be held in very close in parallel to the ground.

It is not obvious because on the face of it you would have very little expectation of success (see Colin’s comment, above).

But seriously, the thing lets you get a very close cut with surprising safety because of the proximity of the blade to the ground due to the support plate (as long as there are no stones on the ground).

As for KSR, this patent issued in 2002 (the good old days) before the USPTO started rejecting patents for no good reason.

Seems like I have seen something like this before. It is called a DR Trimmer.

A DR trimmer has a single spokeless wheel.

This is clearly different and not suggested anywhere in the art. Plus it was recognized as innovative by some folks who recognize such things for a living — that’s an important secondary consideration.

Interesting but it seems pretty dangerous. It appears
that the saw can “kick back” when you hit the top
quarter of the blade (even a TINY branch is enough to cause
this) but it does not appear that the safety measures will
be activated. Perhaps he can modify his design
so the blade locks. He did not remove the safety
device, it just does not appear to be allowed to function.
As it stands now, the whole thing gets ripped out of your
hands and cuts your leg off.

Also, in my experience you need
to notch the tree and tie it off high enough to guarantee which
way it will fall.

In the pictures, it seems like the tree will bind the blade
before it starts to fall. I’ve had to dislodge a lot of bound blades in my time.